I often find myself sort of frustrated with humans progressing further and further into the digital realm. In many respects, it is accommodating and efficient. Things are more “on time” than they have ever been, with thousands if not millions of people working together across the world both simultaneously and harmoniously. I can Skype my brother ,who I don’t see very often, any time I wish. I always know how my friends are doing, and that is an immense comfort in many ways. Maps, books, music, art, news, games…. it’s always with me, just one touch away from the entire bank of human knowledge and activity. And it frightens me a bit.

These days every sort of interaction is being replaced with a digital equivalent, essentially desensitizing the average person. It distills true communication by replacing it with the immediacy of communication. I can give countless examples, of which I’ll share a few. It is very often these days that I will be friends with someone on Facebook before I am actually friends with them. Sure we met at a party, had some laughs, maybe a pertinent conversation, but because of Facebook now we are friends before we have really established too much about one another. And in a way, it gives me this feeling , like “now that we are friends on Facebook we are official friends, and don’t really have to work at becoming closer friends because everyone can see that we are friends, so what’s the point?”. It kinda adds this weird aspect that making friends is about collecting people on a list. It’s like everything on the internet is making us want to have things instantly. Friends instantly via Facebook. Business associates via Linkedin. Have a book delivered directly to my house the next day through Amazon. It is all about speedy completion of human goals that once took time or understanding to create. In this aspect it creates a lack effort. We are slowly trading over more and more aspects of our lives to mouse clicking in front of screens. I think this sort of thing leads to abuse of the environment, as well as one another. It detaches us from a physical and personal space and brings us into a digital one that lacks intimacy in my opinion.

Not only does this damage our human relationships, but it also hurts small businesses in many ways. Amazon is essentially becoming the new marketplace. I searched and you can order broccoli off Amazon. It’s absurd. We can essentially operate completely within our own private sphere and be average individuals. Food, entertainment, just about any sort of product,  even friends are all becoming online conceptions. If one were to work out of his/her home as well, they could be a total shut in while feeling the whole time that they were a part of everything. I know this may seem like an appealing idea to some, but I think it takes away from everything that makes us human if we slowly morph into these control systems for computers. If I’m waiting outside a class, everyone is staring at their phones. Like twenty people all on Facebook answering friend requests instead of talking to the person next to them. It almost makes social interaction look awkward when everyone is so absorbed with digital involvement. I don’t think technology is the devil, I just think that we are becoming far too obsessed with it. Technology is wonderful in the medicinal world as well as dozens of other fields. I just don’t think it should replace small businesses, social interactions and the overall focus of the human race. Personally, I say we should all unplug a little.

It seems that in today’s society, we blow through entertainment with a speed which barely allows for things like webseries, memes, and even television shows to hardly even be considered more than fads. The modern media user is so consumed with what is trending, that when popular shows end they are forgotten as fast as last Sunday’s lunch. I know this sounds sort of contradictory. Aren’t we living in the Golden Age of Television? Between HBO, Showtime, Starz and Netflix, we have seen some of the greatest stories ever written for screenplay come out in more or less the last decade. But it is the sheer amount of shows coming out, which continually raise the bar, that cause this ever seeking desire from the average consumer for a better show. Right now, everyone has their eyes on Game of Thrones and House of Cards. But previously it was Breaking Bad, and before that it was The Sopranos and The Wire. Not to mention True Detective has made a serious impact on the media scene recently as well. It is like there are so many options that no one is quite sure what to pay the most attention to, and there is the omnipresent looming promise of greater shows on the horizon.

For instance, let’s take Breaking Bad. Everyone was literally obsessed with this show. It broke ratings, and even while being a program produced through AMC, a basic cable show, it beat out True Detective and Game of Thrones in several categories at the Golden Globes. Both those shows had established actors in it, while Breaking Bad had the dad from Malcolm in the Middle and Aaron Paul, who was basically doing commercials and small time gigs up until that point. But after the show ended in September of 2013 (yes, there were all sorts of theories about the ending the massaged heart-broken fans, which kept Breaking Bad in our minds for a month or two after), basically the talk about the show ended as well. Everyone turned to the new season of Game Of Thrones, set to come out that spring. New Media has created such a hunger within the modern consumer that there seems to be a lack of permanence to the products it creates.

Another example would be the images used for memes. These days, my news feed on Facebook is littered with memes, due to a friend of mine feeling obligated to only post memes all day long (this has actually gathered him a rather large following, all his posts get twenty likes at least). However the memes that are posted are always different each time, some even coming in the form of videos. I was introduced to the meme as a few select images that got rotated around with new text on them to satirize a trending topic. There was the Willy Wonka sarcastic meme, the Good Guy Brad meme and the Bad Guy Carl meme (I don’t remember the exact names that went with the images, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about) and a few others. But now everyday I see a new meme. Particularly within black culture memes. Most of the memes feature an image of a black person with text, where before hand they were usually focusing around images of white people. This probably has to do with the immense popularity of black culture’s presence in New Media, especially in Vines, Memes, and Webseries. There is so much activity going on at once, that hardly anything gets the spotlight for very long. A meme’s popularity will last a month, while a television series might last as long as its seasons go for. Webseries last as long as they can maintain interesting content given their lack of funding.

The point is that the abundance of material coming through the lens of New Media is creating a vast consumerism that truly cannot be satisfied. We, the consumers, are beginning to think that the next show will have to jump the shark to beat out the last show. This creates an insatiable intake of media that will only grow more rampant as producers attempt to satisfy our thirsty brains.

This is week has sparked the conversation of whether or not the “Gang of Four” are monopolies, or perhaps, a singular monopoly that works in tandem with one another. This also brings up the question of whether or not these companies are to be trusted at all. We all blindly use them of course, but will it ultimately be something that we regret down the road?

The “Age of Platforms” reading seeks to define and separate the Gang of Four from monopolies by comparing them to the Robber Barons. The definition of a monopoly is “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action”. This is done by control of the market (horizontal integration) or control of production (vertical integration). The Robber Barons, such as John D. Rockefeller, were the first men to exploit these critical aspects of the economy, and use vicious and persistent methods of maintaining control by choking out the competition. Is the Gang of Four the Robber Barons reborn?

The reading says no, that Platforms promote collaboration, provide variety, and don’t force the customer to use them. But I see some issues with this analysis. We need to address conformity. When people look to use social media, the first place to look is Facebook. Sure there are other options, like MySpace, Twitter and Linked-In, but none have even close to as many users as Facebook (Facebook has 900,000,000 users, compared to second most popular, Twitter, with 310,000,000). More or less you feel obligated to use Facebook. You use social media in order to maintain contact with your friends. So what’s the point of using MySpace if all your friends are on Facebook? It defeats the purpose.

This is not so much an issue with Apple products, as the Android is a serious competitor, both being equally used by the populace. But once again, we see an extraordinarily limited set of options. People want what other people have, iPhones and Androids are what is in right now. Most customers will only be satisfied with one of those two. And who owns them? Apple and Google, two of the Gang of Four. And this is because Facebook and Amazon don’t have a vested interest in phones quite yet, and Apple and Google products are commonly the items used to access their material.

If you want to buy something online, it is almost always going to be through Amazon. The reading tries to defend against this by saying that anyone can start an online store to sell their product, but how long is it before Amazon seeks to add them to their warehouse. The only case in which a vendor will really maintain their wares through their site is highly original work which can’t be mass produced. Art, more or less. My mother makes furniture out of bittersweet vines that she sells through her website. Amazon will never approach her (besides the fact that her business is very small) because her works are very individual, and frankly are of no interest for Amazon due to its methods.

I say the Gang of Four do have a sort of monopoly on their said markets, for two reasons. One is the fact that they have created the conformist mindset. People gravitate towards these companies due to the immense popularity of social media, online shopping, product allegiance, and the Internet in general, because these companies dominate the four corners of the online world. People get Apple products to search for items on Google that they heard about on Facebook that they ultimately buy through Amazon. In this way, they are almost one singular monopoly that pinballs internet users through their platforms while picking their wallets and their time.

Secondly, these companies definitely lobby and buy out smaller options that they see as viable planks to continue each of their network effects. This may not be as cutthroat as the Robber Barons, who were the single controllers of their products/markets, but the world is a much bigger and more advanced place today than it was back then. Facebook and Google have probably taken out far more companies than the Robber Barons ever did, because there are countless more companies being started up today compared to back then. Overall, I say the Robber Barons is a dated comparison to be using against the Gang of Four. The times are completely different, but just like the Robber Barons, the Gang of Four is staying on top.